STORIES

Mentoring Is ‘the Best Part of the Job’

Mary Callahan Erdoes (MBA 1993) is CEO of JPM Asset Management at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and is a 2016 recipient of an HBS Alumni Achievement Award. In this interview, Erdoes talks about the value of mentoring.

“At JP Morgan, I’ve been blessed with lots of mentors who’ve helped me through. And mentors aren’t something you sign-up for; mentors aren’t something where you have a program where they make two people get to— no—that doesn’t work.

“A mentor is when you find someone who can see you from a different perspective than you see yourself. And that person takes an interest in giving you feedback to make you better—and doesn’t hold back.

“I oversee 22,000 people, and if I could be a mentor toward all 22,000, I would. But you can’t. So being a mentor is finding the people where you have enough interaction with them where you think you can help them see things in themselves that they don’t see, and that a little guidance, and a little coaching, and a little steering just makes them blossom. I love doing that. That’s the best part of the job.”